


measured by success

by anstaar



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: F/M, Identity Issues, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-04
Updated: 2011-07-04
Packaged: 2017-10-21 01:07:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/219221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anstaar/pseuds/anstaar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ivan takes a trip and doesn't deal with the two sides of his cousin (set before Brother in Arms)</p>
            </blockquote>





	measured by success

Ivan was _supposed_ to be going on vacation; he had a date and everything. However, when Simon Ilyan mentioned that maybe you could spend your (well earned) break visiting Illyrica, you nodded and smiled and were glad of the suggestion of an extra free day 'when you get back.' After he had called Gina he had even started to look forward to the trip, a little bit. A, supposedly, uncomplicated journey that would be fully paid for and which would last significantly longer than his original break wasn't something to be sneezed at. The fact that it concerned some information he cheerfully knew nothing about didn't bother him. His mother would be satisfied (how his mother was aware of classified ImpSec missions was yet another mystery that Ivan was sure he was much happier not knowing) and you never knew when a pretty girl would suddenly appear and want company for the long, tiring ride.  
  
Indeed, the first three stop were actually very enjoyable. Ivan had a talent for picking up women, but even he had to admit that finding Natasha and Bee and Tiff was a sign that his good luck was working full force. Possibly, he should have wondered what it was making up for. The trip to Tau Verde was going to be longest and, Ivan hoped, most enjoyable stretch of his trip seeing as a Betan tour group had come on at Escobar. Ivan had quite a few traumatizing memories associated with his Betan aunt (that his mother had allowed him to get a sex talk from Auntie Cordelia was the ninety-fourth miracle of the greater galaxy - and not one that Ivan appreciated) but he was sure that most Betans didn't pop from the canister fully formed and ready to lecture on the inadequacies in teenage sex education on Barrayar. In fact, he was just inching an arm around the shoulders of a girl, called Sky he assumed for her dark blue hair, with only an estimated twenty-seven percent chance of rejection, when the Mercenaries attacked.  
  
According to the official reports, the Batavia Mercenary Fleet took over their ship at nine standard Escobaran time. Ivan could have translated that to Barrayaran time but his head hurt too much. Actually, the takeover was quite smooth. There were only five injuries (the pilot, the captain, Ivan, a Cetagandan and an older Betan) with no deaths. This was mainly because the captain had been stunned immediately (his unconscious fall resulting in a bruised spine) and after a little arm twisting (or arm breaking, to be exact) the pilot agreed that his contract definitely didn't include dealing with attackers and handed over control of the ship. The other three injuries, in order, occurred when Ivan smashed his head into a door, when the Cetagandan's pride led him to receive a fist to the face and the when the excitement led to a flare up in the Betan's heart condition.  
  
Ivan smashed his head when he had tried to walk through a door that had been, seconds before, open and yet was then definitely closed. The only comfort was the quite a few people had been watching him and had agreed that the door really had been open mere seconds before he had tried to walk through it to fetch some water. That didn't stop the mercenary medic from smirking when Ivan had to explain what had happened. He was sent to sit next to the sulking Cetagandan, who luckily ignored him, while the Betan grumbled about the expense of replacement hearts.   
  
Truthfully, they were very lucky. The mercenaries (who turned out to be a rather talkative bunch) had not captured their ship to kill them all and then send the dead ship floating through space to start rumors that would chill the spine of the brave man. In fact, they didn't even really have any interest in possible ransoms for the passengers (apparently, between the risk and reward, there were rarely good rates). Reading between the Medic's words, Ivan guessed that they had been hired to jack up insurance rates by disrupting orderly travel on the Indigo Lines.  
  
If Ivan had been just an ordinary vacationer he would have been torn between annoyance at the delay, relief at their relative safety and hope that this might prove to be a bonding experience between himself and the, likely terrified, Sky. As it was, he spent half his waking moments hoping that they wouldn't get bored enough to start scanning the passenger for anything besides their ready cash which had been 'voluntarily' donated to the Batavian cause. The other half of his time he spent cursing his overachieving cousin. In most families, he was sure; coming home with stories of the hostile takeover of your ship by mercenaries would be greeted with condolences and pride in your ability to keep calm in the face of danger. In his family they would probably ask why he hadn't taken over the damned fleet.  
  
It was during one of the times Ivan was cursing his maniac, little cousin that Ivan first met Admiral Miles Naismith. It had been years since Ivan had found himself sitting next to the hospital bed where Miles had lain with a new stomach listening as Miles told him off-handily that he was in control of a fleet of mercenaries who viewed him as their admiral. It hadn't been the first or the last impossible thing that Miles had done, but that one always stuck in Ivan's brain. Lying in a hospital bed with a hole in his stomach (and probably in his brain) announcing something that just shouldn't have happened. That was when Ivan realized that in certain ways, Miles was completely insane. When Naismith's voice boomed out over the loudspeakers, announcing that they were now in the hands of the Dendarii Mercenaries, daring rescues their specialty, and Ivan decided it was much worse than that.       
  
Miles had always gotten really into his role of make believe. As kids, they had spent a lot of time together playing games of imagination and Miles had always been the best and the last to break character. Ivan's ma ran the social scene of Vorbarr Sultana and some of his earliest memories were of sitting, listening to an immobilized Miles while Gregor did homework and Bothari, and other armsmen, lurked in the background. Back then, Miles' stories had been intense but after he had learned to walk there was something different about everything.  
  
Aunt Cordelia, looking frighteningly maternal, had shown him an old 'holo she'd found of one of their childish games of pretend. From a clear perspective it was rather ridiculous. A twisted homunculus of a boy with a broken shoulder and a high pitched voice announcing (ordering into being) to two other children his plan to rescue Vortala's Emperor from the enemy counts' clutches (Gregor's eleventh birthday party was a long lasting memory). In truth it was then that Ivan had first wonder insanity was transmittable because even just watching the shaking 'holo he knew he would still follow Miles, even when the consequences shifted from a ruined cake to dancing along the precarious balance of power between two empires.  
  
The Dendarii were all the proof Ivan would ever need to make his case for transmittable insanity. He followed in the Admiral's wake (old friend, Naismith had said, helped me out of a bind, awhile back) and watched everyone turn toward the Admiral like a Burnflower slid toward the sun. He followed Naismith into his cabin and then Miles grinned at him and the world seemed wrong.   
  
Miles was not Naismith. Miles was his cousin. Miles was smart and sarcastic and bitter and defensive and walked like he was going to vanish into himself. Miles got Ivan in and out of trouble about a million times a second and had an annoying talent with horses. Naismith wasn't Miles. He was smart and sarcastic and open and walked like he had already taken over the world and was deciding what to do after lunch. Naismith was responsible for his fleet and came up with mad idea (that worked) to get them out of the trouble they hired into and acted like he'd lived half his life in the desert. Everyone loved Naismith.   
  
Ivan was easily led. He would argue (not with his mother) that it was how he was brought up to be. You followed what the men in uniform said, even if they were holding the uniform on the inside. As he saw it, one could logically see how being told to obey his uncle Aral would lead to him following Thomas 'the Tack' Vormalle in removing every desk from the history classroom. More generally, it most times it was simply easier to go along with things and Ivan _liked_ easy and there was never anything wrong (well, some of Miles' adventures had pushed it a little bit)  with the things he went along with so why bother fighting against the grain? Still, the basic fact was that he was rather easily led and therefore someone else should have noticed what a bad idea it was to put him on a ship with a bunch of people in love with someone who wasn't _really_ his cousin. Besides, Naismith was easier.  
  
Ivan had chosen never to think about Miles', often twisted, feelings toward him. That wasn't because he couldn't. Ivan was sure that, if he made himself, it would be easy enough to delve into the mess of jealousy, love and affection that he wasn't even sure that Miles himself could fully articulate (not that Ivan would be able to accurately pin down his _own_ feelings toward his cousin). On the other hand, Ivan was also sure that, if he made himself, it would be easy enough to stick his hand into a pile of broken glass and rusty nails and about as much fun. Ivan wasn't a psychologist but he doubted if Miles would even admit to some of the feelings that Ivan could easily see in retrospect. They had been born mere months apart. They were Vor cousins which meant that they were a bit more closely related than most cousins. Remove a lifetime of medical complications brought on by prenatal poisoning and they would most likely look a lot alike. That, of course, was the problem. Miles saw in Ivan everything he could have been and somewhere, deep in his twisted soul, Ivan had no doubt that he hated him for that, even if it was just a little bit. Even now, Miles would give up everything he had to get back what he had lost before he was born. Ivan didn't know if he would be happy if he got it but that wasn't important. Miles will never acknowledge that jealousy and Ivan was totally okay with that. He liked the friendship they had formed as adults, well, older adolescents at least, which was slightly less encumbered by their childhoods. Miles Naismith carried none of those feelings.            
  
That was why he kissed Miles. Ivan was sitting in Miles' room, partly so he wouldn't say something that could hurt Miles' cover and partly so he wouldn't be beaten up in a dark corridor by Miles' fan club, which pretty much included every member of the ship (Ivan liked to think that he could lie to himself well enough to hide how uncomfortable he felt switching between Miles teasing him about being caught by mercenaries and Naismith's efficient command). He was lounging on his cousin's bed (which was far too comfortable to sustain a proper mercenary attitude in his opinion) remembering. Once, a little while before they had headed off to different prep schools, the two of them had gone off exploring 'the castle depths' as Miles had put it. It had started as them just wandering about trying to find Gregor, but without any real urgency. If they had really wanted to find the Emperor they could have asked anyone. They were truly alone together, in a way they never really were, because Bothari was sick (Ivan was sure that Borthari couldn't _really_ be the terrifying giant of his memory but the fact that he could only remember Bothari getting sick twice during their childhood did add to his frightful air). After Bothari, the palace guards were easy enough to avoid, or at least ignore.   
  
("I don't really need a lot of protection, anyway," Miles had told him once. "After gran'da no one's really tried. I think they figure that the first one took care of things okay. Bothari is just so I don't fall down the stairs and break all my bones again." Miles said things like that)  
  
They were almost at the wine cellars when it really became a game. "We could be lost down here, forever," Miles had said, looking rather pleased at this idea. They couldn't so Ivan joined in.  
  
"We could live on wine and rats."  
  
"Exactly," Miles said, "and we'd spend our days looking for a way out and avoiding traps left behind by the false king." That meant they were playing Vortala the Bold so Ivan started pretending to look around for traps. Miles was still caught up in the moment, though, and when Ivan looked over he was just standing there but Ivan and knew that it was Miles-the-general, without a word. They were found a few hours later by an irate guard, covered in cobwebs and tipsy on wine drunk to 'slacken their thirst.' Ivan got into trouble for hiding and ruining his clothes and so that adventure with Miles ended like they always did, with his mother's scolding. Years later, spending his days watching Miles slide back into his twisted body, that moment of seeing something _outside_ itched at the edges of Ivan's mind and he almost recaptured that feeling for the first time in a long time.  
  
Ivan was remembering that day when Naismith stepped through his cabin door and Ivan was sitting up and Naismith turned toward him and the room wasn't that big and Ivan kissed him. Sometimes he like to think that it was a just a brush in a small cabin that turned into something more because he hadn’t seen a girl (who didn't have a thing for his cousin) in three weeks. Ivan has the family memory, though, and he's not _that_ good at lying to himself and he knows what happened. It was just a kiss because Naismith became an extremely awkward Miles and Ivan ran away to the gym and when he returned, much, later they both pretended that nothing had happened, just an accident brought on by cabin fever. Late at night, Ivan thought about Miles (sometimes) and Naismith and family issues he wished he didn't have to ever think about and then goes back to pretending nothing happened.


End file.
